[ex-cavator]

As a relative newbie with a new (to me!) lotty, I am raring to go, and was looking today at the £4.99 fruit trees at the local Poundstretchers store.
I've got two questions - firstly, are these good, or is it a case of you get what you pay for?
Secondly - referring to my book, it talks about cross pollination and that you may have to plant two or more compatible trees together. Does compatible purely mean ones that flower at the same time? I assume (from trawling the depths of my mind and thinking back to biology lessons all those years ago) that this is to do with male & female flowers? So, how do I know whether both trees have male, or both female, flowers? Or does each tree have a mixture - in which case, why do I need two trees in the first place? (Oh, Dear! that's more than two questions  )

[Yorkie]

They may well survive but you probably have no idea what root stock they are or, possibly, not even which variety so you don't know how big they will get or more details about them.

As far as I know, never having really thought about it before, you don't get male and female trees as such.  You do get some varieties of plants that are self-fertile and therefore don't need a companion for fertilisation, but many trees will require another of the same (?) or similar variety nearby so that pollen from one can fertilise the bits on the other.

Apples are more complicated and there are three groups - if you have a group 1 and a group 3 tree then I don't think  they will crossfertilise for various reasons.

Others will hopefully be along at some point who can waffle less and answer more 

[gillie]

A lot of apples are not self fertile, so need another apple tree of a different variety  to cross pollinate with.  However there are no separate male and female plants and all the flowers function as both male and female.

Some apples are 'triploids' which means in essence that their pollen is useless, so you need a tree to pollinate the  triploid, and another one to make sure that the pollinating tree also gets cross pollinated.  Bramley is probably the best known triploid.

Obviously all the trees need to be in flower at  the same time, and the catalogues usually tell you the flowering group of a variety, but unless you choose one that is particularly early (Group 1) or very late (Group 6 I think) into flower this is not normally a problem as apple trees blossom over a few weeks.

Pears behave in a similar way.

You don't need to own all the trees.  A neighbour's tree will suffice.

Cheers,

Gillie

[madcat]

I bought a nectarine on a whim 2 yrs ago from Poundstretchers and it has been great, except it is a peach!  It is self fertile, must be as there isn't another around (my nectarine flowers a lot earlier) ,and has flowered both years.  First year, I took the fruit off to give it chance to grow.  Last year I just thinned it and got 8 good fruits off and it is going very nicely thank you.   Coped well with the snow.

I think they are middle of the road, mainstream plants on mainstream root stock, maybe surplus to someone's requirement! 

[solway cropper]

I noticed the plum on offer in my local poundstretcher was opal which is self-fertile. Didn't look at the apples cos I already have 4 mature trees. I did see that they were quite small so you'd have a few years to wait before getting a crop.